GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS ANNOUNCEMENTS
GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SIGN Ålandic-HUNGARIAN WRITER Noémi Kiss-Deáki FOR HER joyful and furious debut
GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS have acquired world rights to Noémi Kiss-Deáki’s sensational debut novel, Mary and the Rabbit Dream.
Set in early eighteenth century England, Mary and the Rabbit Dream reimagines the strange and fascinating story of Mary Toft, an impoverished Godalming hops-picker who, for a short period, found fame when a large swathe of England (including several eminent doctors) became convinced that she could give birth to rabbits.
“The story is absorbing enough as it is,” says Galley Beggar co-director Eloise Millar. “But in Noémi’s hands, it becomes something astonishing. I don’t use that word lightly. This is the story of Mary Toft. It’s also a story of bodily autonomy, of absurdity, of the horrors inflicted on women, of the cruel realities of poverty and the grotesque divides between rich and poor. It’s a book that matters deeply – and it’s also a compelling page-turner that Noémi writes with incredible panache and wit. She’s created something that simultaneously had me howling with rage, and hooting with laughter. I’ve never read anything like it: the story itself, or the style it’s written in. Noémi has created something both furious and joyous, and something that is utterly her own.”
“This is a book that came from our open submissions – and finding it fully-formed in there felt like a kind of miracle,” says fellow co-director Sam Jordison. “We opened Noémi’s submission and it hit us with all the power of the national grid. We started reading on the Friday morning of a busy day. Within the hour, we put everything we could aside. Friday afternoon, we emailed Noémi to ask if she was free for a meeting. We read all day Saturday, all day Sunday – met with Noémi at 18:30 Sunday night, and by 20:00 had sent an offer. I can’t tell you how thrilled we are that Noémi got in contact with us, or that we’re going to be publishing Mary and the Rabbit Dream. It’s a unique story – but also one that has deep and universal resonance. It’s also told with exquisite wit, skill and a beautiful streak of subversive mischief. It’s magic.”
A single mother, Noémi Kiss-Deáki was born in Finland and lives on the Åland Islands – a devolved and autonomous region of Finland with its own laws and a population of 30,000. Noémi speaks Hungarian, Swedish and English but writes all of her fiction in English. She has an academic background in art history and the history of science and ideas. She works as a medical secretary in the day, and writes fiction in the evenings. Her short story ‘The Revenge’ is set to appear in the forthcoming anthology Stories of Rebellion in January 2024 (published by The Selkie).
Of Mary and the Rabbit Dream, Noémi says:
“My first encounter with the story of Mary Toft was as a teenager reading a historical magazine, where she was summarized in a couple of short sentences in a segment dedicated to historical curiosities. It wasn’t until I read Professor Karen Harvey’s The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder that I realized what a politically, culturally and socioeconomically complex story this was. And then, when I went on and read the contemporary pamphlets of the three most involved doctors in the case – and their at many times deeply unnerving descriptions and approaches to Mary Toft – I realized I wanted to do something with this. Historians are constrained by the historical documents available and can only really speculate when it comes to the whys and hows of certain historical events. Fiction writers can take those speculations, make a leap – and let them blossom.”
“Two weeks ago, we didn’t know that Noémi, or her wonderful novel, existed,” says Eloise Millar. “Now, we have a new writer we feel will astonish the world. We cannot wait to press Mary and the Rabbit Dream into readers’ hands – and I feel like so lucky to be here at the beginning of an extraordinary career.”
Mary and the Rabbit Dream will be published in July 2024.